Climakers has inaugurated a new approach where the entire value chain is in partnership with farmers, downstream from input suppliers and upstream to reach consumers, promoting a genuine bottom-up, farmer-driven approach made up of solutions at the level base to ensure the sustainability and resilience of food systems. In the challenging framework of the global pandemic of COVID 19, the Climakers are even more ready to draw the attention of decision makers – at all levels – to the needs and solutions of farmers and all food system stakeholders in this new challenge.
During the COVID 19 pandemic, members of the Climakers Alliance took their practical knowledge and put it at the service of their business and the entire food chain, from farm to fork. Farmers have proposed breakthrough initiatives to ensure they can continue their activities, and each actor in the supply chain is committed to ensuring that farmers have the means (seeds, fertilizers, agrochemicals, technologies) to do it; R&I actors have done their part in partnering with farmers and actors in the food chain to help find the right solutions in different contexts. It is now up to policy makers to ensure that food systems are functioning properly and are resilient to external shocks. This implies first that policymakers must channel decision-making and investments to improve solutions that have already proven to work at the sector level and the food chain as a whole. Because only a truly bottom-up approach can ensure that we act quickly and effectively. Next, political decision-makers must take into account the needs and actions of sectoral actors, in particular the contributions of civil society, in a joint effort towards the proper functioning of food systems and sustainability.